Scotch And Pen

*This story is not for children. 
 *I have never been nor will I ever be a spy but I sure do have fun writing about them.

“Kill him.” Scotch instructed.

She looked at the man as he lay on his own study floor—choking, gasping for air, foaming at the mouth. “He’s dying.” Pen countered.

“Slowly. Too slowly.” He said. “Finish him. Now.” Scotch pulled out a knife and waited for Pen to take it from his hand.

Pen looked at him, then her victim choking on the floor. A sound of footsteps echoed through the mansion’s foyer and stopped on the other side of the study door.

“Gregory?” A voice called. “Are you in there darling? I have to something to show you.” They heard the sound of bags rustling. “It’s in the bedroom. I’ll be right back.” The footsteps faded as the woman on the other side of the door headed to her bedroom.

This time Scotch mouthed the words. “Do it.”

“This is ridiculous.” Pen said as she took the knife from Scotch’s gloved hand. “He’s dy-ing.” She looked at her victim only long enough to expose his neck and verify that she had the knife properly positioned. Pen looked up at Scotch while she applied pressure to her target’s jugular and sliced an opening across his neck. “Absolutely ridiculous. I was hired as a consultant for lab research. I’m not even supposed to be doing field work. I told Corporate up front, ‘No Blood.’ I stated that specifically during the final interview. ‘I am willing to do a little field work only during an emergency on two conditions: there was to be minimal use of weapons and no blood.’” She wiped her bloody gloves on Scotch's shirt after handing him back the knife.

“Which is fine as long as you do the job correctly to begin with.” Scotch responded and accepted the return of his weapon.

Pen shook her depleted vial of poison. “I wonder what went wrong. Maybe I should have gone with the cyanide.”

The two turn their attention back to the study door at the sound of approaching footsteps. “I’m coming darling!” A woman’s voice called out.

“We can talk about that later, come on.” Scotch said as he pushed Pen to their exit.

Pen walked to the fire Scotch had built and deposited her bloodied clothes on to the pile. The basic black leggings, white tank top, and dark blue hoodie in her mission bag lacked imagination but was right for the weather, current climate, and time of year. If they encountered anyone on the way to the car she and Scotch would be just another couple who had snuck onto the private beach of an unoccupied house for a romantic rendezvous. She watched as Scotch tended the fire.

“Did you change all of your clothes?”

“Um hmmm.”

“Shoes?”

“Yes.”

“Where’s the vial of poison?”

“In the flames.”

“Cell phone?” He asked.

Pen closed her eyes. “My cell phone is at home where it belongs per company policy. The corporate issue phone is still in the mission bag. It has not been used. Anything else?”

Scotch consulted a small notepad. “No that’s it.” He tore up the notepad and tossed it into the flames.

Pen watched as the notepad and Scotch's checklist immediately began to burn. “Isn’t that still evidence?” She asked.

“What?”

“The notepad cover.”

Scotch grinned. “Special cover. Looks and feels like leather but is actually a fast burning paper. It doesn’t retain finger prints either.” He looked at Pen. “Spy tech.”

“It smells funny when it burns. I wonder what makes up its chemical composition.”

“When we get back to work you can stop by the lab and ask if they’ll let you do a litmus test.”

“Ha. Ha.”

“Not funny?”

Pen glared at Scotch.

“Not funny.” He acknowledged and went back to studying the flames.

“What is funny is where we’re at. This house is only a few miles down the road from our target.” Pen looked up from the flames. “Why did we stop here?”

“An agent will always stop and destroy any and all evidence from their mission at the nearest Corporate sanctioned location once their mission is complete. You should have learned that on day three of your training. It’s in the manual. Chapter Five: The Mission.”

“I didn’t go through training.” Pen said.

“You didn’t go through training?”

“I was hired as a consultant. Consultants are not permanent employees so most companies tell a consultant the bare bones basic information necessary to complete that and only that job. It’s not worth the output of money to fully train a temporary employee.”

“We don’t work for a company, we work for a spy agency. It’s what spies do. If you haven’t noticed, I’m a spy.”
“We are working for a spy agency that is using standard business techniques to run their consultants.” Pen pointed out. “I am perfectly aware that you’re a spy. You have that devil-may-care James Bond wannabe thing going on.”

Scotch looked at Pen. Something in his usually warm brown eyes had grown darker. 

Pen had second thoughts about her comment. “I was just kidding about the James Bond thing.”

“I’m a spy. It takes a lot more than a crack like that to bother me.”

“What does bother you?”

“Hmm...What bothers me. Having to wear this generic crap after every job, the elimination of smoking, some drinks taste better with a good cigar. The fact that you keep insisting that you're a temporary consultant but I was told that I would begin training my new partner tonight. That bothers me most of all.”

*This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.